Tag: Young Adult

“Sheine Lende” Review

Posted on by Jen

“Sheine Lende” by Darcie Little Badger

Shane works with her mother and their ghost dogs, tracking down missing persons even when their families can’t afford to pay. Their own family was displaced from their traditional home years ago following a devastating flood – and the loss of Shane’s father and her grandparents. They don’t think they’ll ever get their home back.

Then Shane’s mother and a local boy go missing, after a strange interaction with a fairy ring. Shane, her brother, her friends, and her lone, surviving grandparent – who isn’t to be trusted – set off on the road to find them. But they may not be anywhere in this world – or this place in time.

Nevertheless, Shane is going to find them.

Review

I really enjoyed this book and the characters. I thought this one worked a bit better than “Elatsoe” for which this is a prequel. The main thing that makes this one work better for me is that Shane isn’t surrounded by adults who know as much as she does or more. She actually is the only one with the specific type of training for how to find people the way her mother does. The primary adults in this book are grandparents of those who are missing and her own grandparent who isn’t as helpful as he should be, and then a few additional teenagers she knows. In general I think this book just feels like it works better in the sense of being a book where a younger person solves the day while adults can’t help.

I also felt like the world building was a little better in this book. A lot of things were explained more, or if not it as acknowledged that information was not available. The mimic rings are unknown to everyone in this situation as no one really knows why the exist. So Shane has to do the work of finding out what is going on and who might have the information. I really like how she handles everything while also looking after her little brother. I also like the friendships she has and develops along the way.

I really liked the resolution of everything with what had happened to her mother and also another person that disappeared years ago. The clues are there to be had, and while the solution was little more whimsical than I’d usually enjoy, it totally worked for this book.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Sheine Lende”.

Book Details

The cover is filled with yellow sunflower petals with a herd of gray mammoths interspaced within the petals. Two are mostly visible near the bottom left of the cover and more at the top right corner. There's a teenager at the bottom right of the cover wearing a white shirt and blue overhauls and carrying a brown backpack. She's walking towards the right. While looking behind her where the mammoths are in the picture. The authors name is at the top of the book with the title below it.

Author’s Website
Darcie Little Badger
Publisher / Date
Levine Querido, April 2024
Genre
Fantasy, Young Adult
Page Count
368
Completion Date
August 13, 2024

“Summer Bird Blue” Review

Posted on by Jen

“Summer Bird Blue” by Akemi Dawn Bowman

Rumi Seto spends a lot of time worrying she doesn’t have the answers to everything. What to eat, where to go, whom to love. But there is one thing she is absolutely sure of—she wants to spend the rest of her life writing music with her younger sister, Lea.

Then Lea dies in a car accident, and her mother sends her away to live with her aunt in Hawaii while she deals with her own grief. Now thousands of miles from home, Rumi struggles to navigate the loss of her sister, being abandoned by her mother, and the absence of music in her life. With the help of the “boys next door” — a teenage surfer named Kai, who smiles too much and doesn’t take anything seriously, and an eighty-year-old named George Watanabe, who succumbed to his own grief years ago — Rumi attempts to find her way back to her music, to write the song she and Lea never had the chance to finish.

Aching, powerful, and unflinchingly honest, Summer Bird Blue explores big truths about insurmountable grief, unconditional love, and how to forgive even when it feels impossible.

Review

I really enjoyed reading this book. Rumi has a lot to work through and her time in Hawaii helped put a lot of things into perspective. Her anger is a lot and she does come across as very mean but it’s also very understandable. I’m glad she developed such good friendships with Kai (along with his friend group) and Mr. Watanabe. While the situation with her mother seems horrible at first I ended up liking the way it was handled. It’s a lot more complicated than it first seems. Rumi isn’t always a reliable narrator in what’s happening due to her anger and grief, but there’s also things her mother needs to work as well. I thought the ending worked well for the story being told. There is a good outcome for the future as Rumi and her mother are dealing with their grief.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph Page for “Summer Bird Blue”.

Book Details

The background of the book cover has the appearance of a painted blue and green wave of water curling up from the bottom towards the top of the cover with the. There are two drawn images of birds at the top of bottom of the cover with the bottom one sitting on a flower. The title is written in the center of the cover with the author's name at the bottom.

Author’s Website
Akemi Dawn Bowman
Publisher / Date
Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers, September 2018
Genre
General Fiction, Young Adult
Page Count
384
Completion Date
August 5, 2024

“The Gatekeeper’s Staff” Review

Posted on by Jen

“The Gatekeeper’s Staff” (TJ Young & The Orishas No. 1) by Antoine Bandele

Fourteen-year-old TJ grew up normal in a secret community of gifted diviners in the heart of modern-day Los Angeles. His powerful sister was ordained to lead his people into a new age of prosperity, but her mysterious death in Nigeria threatens to destroy the very foundations of TJ’s world.

Desperate to pick up where his sister left off and uncover the secrets behind her questionable death, TJ commits himself to unlocking the magical heritage that has always eluded him. So he enrolls in Camp Olosa—a remedial magic school for the divinely less-than-gifted in the humid swamps of New Orleans.

But little does he know, TJ is destined to cross paths with powerful spirits of old thought lost to time: the Orishas.

Review

I really enjoyed this book. I really liked the way the family dynamics and the world building for the magic of this series. My only question was that it ends up TJ’s father also isn’t magical but there isn’t really a suggestion that that could be the reason TJ isn’t? Not sure if I missed something or that could have been clarified somewhere along the line. I liked the way TJ’s friendships developed at the camp and how things worked out. I did have one small issue with how one character was treated however it mostly works out in the end. In any case I thought it was a good start to the series and I’m looking forward to reading the next book.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “The Gatekeeper’s Staff”.

Book Details

A dark skinned teenager is floating in the ocean surrounded by sharks and eels holding a glowing staff. He's wearing a reddish hoody and jeans and there are chines on either side of him. The Title of the books is across the bottom half of the cover with the authors name at the top.

Author’s Website
Antoine Bandele
Publisher / Date
Bandele Books, June 2021
Genre
Fantasy, Young Adult
Page Count
461
Completion Date
July 25, 2024

“The Spirit Bares Its Teeth” Review

Posted on by Jen

“The Spirit Bares Its Teeth” by Andrew Joseph White

London, 1883. The Veil between the living and dead has thinned. Violet-eyed mediums commune with spirits under the watchful eye of the Royal Speaker Society, and sixteen-year-old Silas Bell would rather rip out his violet eyes than become an obedient Speaker wife. According to Mother, he’ll be married by the end of the year. It doesn’t matter that he’s needed a decade of tutors to hide his autism; that he practices surgery on slaughtered pigs; that he is a boy, not the girl the world insists on seeing.

After a failed attempt to escape an arranged marriage, Silas is diagnosed with Veil sickness—a mysterious disease sending violet-eyed women into madness—and shipped away to Braxton’s Sanitorium and Finishing School. The facility is cold, the instructors merciless, and the students either bloom into eligible wives or disappear. So when the ghosts of missing students start begging Silas for help, he decides to reach into Braxton’s innards and expose its rotten guts to the world—as long as the school doesn’t break him first.

Review

This was such a good book with a lot of great characters besides Silas. While it doesn’t have quite as much gore as the other’s other book, there is some, all with a medical focus this time. I really enjoyed how Silas struggles to work everything out while dealing with everything else going on for him. The plot is very dark and disturbing but I really like how everything plays out. Certain things were not a surprise while others completely were and I really enjoyed it all. And I was really glad a particular plot point was resolved the way it did. The ending is a bit open ended but I think it makes sense given the storyline.

Be sure to take note of the authors warnings at the beginning of the book. Also be sure to read the authors end notes because while this story is fantasy the ugly truth is people always been sent a way because they were deemed unfit by society and many have been experimented on throughout history.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “The Spirit Bares Its Teeth”.

Book Details

The cover has a young person standing in the middle of it facing forwards but with their head turned to the right. Their skin is very pale white with brown hair and they are wearing a purple dress and holding a broken shard of glass that is also purple. Behind them is a sky in purple with white clouds. They're framed in an oval shaped image with other images of violet eyes all around the cover. The authors name is at the top and the title is at the bottom on a ribbon that is wrapped around the picture frame.

Author’s Website
Andrew Joseph White
Publisher / Date
Peachtree Publishing Company, September 2023
Genre
Historical Fiction, Horror, Young Adult
Page Count
381
Completion Date
July 21, 2024

“Blood at the Root” Review

Posted on by Jen

“Blood at the Root” by LaDarrion Williams

Ten years ago, Malik’s life changed forever the night his mother mysteriously vanished and he discovered he had uncontrollable powers. Since then, he has kept his abilities hidden, looking out for himself and his younger foster brother, Taye. Now, at 17, Malik is finally ready to start a new life for both of them, far from the trauma of his past. However, a daring act to rescue Taye reveals an unexpected connection with his long-lost grandmother: a legendary conjurer with ties to a hidden magical university that Malik’s mother attended.

At Caiman University, Malik’s eyes are opened to a future he never could have envisioned for himself— one that includes the reappearance of his first love, Alexis. His search for answers about his heritage, his powers, and what really happened to his mother exposes the cracks in their magical community as it faces a reawakened evil dating back to the Haitian Revolution. Together with Alexis, Malik discovers a lot beneath the surface at Caiman: feuding covens and magical politics, forbidden knowledge and buried mysteries.

In a wholly unique saga of family, history and community, Malik must embrace his legacy to save what’s left of his old family as well as his new one. Exploring the roots and secrets that connect us in an unforgettable contemporary setting, this heart-pounding fantasy series opener is a rich tapestry of atmosphere, intrigue, and emotion.

Review

I really enjoyed this book! The characters are all great and there are a lot of interesting things going on. I liked the way Malik tried to look out for his brother while still dealing with going to the university and figuring out what happened with his mom. I liked the way history was described and how Malik was able to learn a lot of things through dreams and visions thanks to magic. There were some confusing parts and I felt like some things could have been explained better, such as how the magic works and what kind of things people can do. Everything felt a little random regarding the magic. There’s definitely a mix of different cultures being used in the book and I’m not sure how well the author does it with (this is something to check other reviews for). I also wasn’t sure if some other issues I did notice were related to the writing or Malik being a teenager with teenage reactions to things. I do think some things could have been improved with a bit more editing and thoughts about how things could be perceived. As to the language and AAVE use I’ve seen some reviews (all from Black people) that say “no one talks like this” and others saying “yes they do” and it probably comes down to where people live and the ages of the people talking. All that said I did enjoy the book and I’m looking forward to where the story goes next.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Blood at the Root”.

Book Details

A young Black teen is standing in front of a tree with many branches and hangling leaves at night. THere's a white light shining behind the tree and everything looks blue. The teen is wearing a black hoody or robe standing in front of line of lit candles with blue light with a book an open book in between them and his hands out over the candle flames which are also blue. The title of the book is over the teen's chest.

Author’s Website
LaDarrion Williams
Publisher / Date
Labyrinth Road, May 2024
Genre
Fantasy, Young Adult
Page Count
432
Completion Date
July 20, 2024

“Children of Anguish and Anarchy” Review

Posted on by Jen

“Children of Anguish and Anarchy” (Legacy of Orïsha No. 3) by Tomi Adeyemi

When Zélie seized the royal palace that fateful night, she thought her battles had come to an end. The monarchy finally fell. The maji rose again. Zélie never expected to find herself locked in a cage and trapped on a foreign ship. Now warriors with iron skulls traffic her and her people across the seas, far from their homeland.

But everything changes when Zélie meets King Baldyr, her true captor and the man who has ravaged entire civilizations to find her. The ruler of the Skulls, Baldyr’s quest to harness Zélie’s strength sends Zélie, Amari, and Tzain searching for allies in foreign lands.

But as Baldyr closes in, catastrophe charges Orïsha’s shores. It will take everything Zélie has to face her final enemy and save her people before the Skulls annihilate them for good.

Review

I really enjoyed this book! I didn’t mind the shift in plot away from Orïsha because it made sense there was more going on beyond the borders. I did feel like some ideas could have been built up a little more but the world building was still interesting. The ending did feel a little abrupt but overall I liked the story it told. It’s been a little too long since I read the previous two books so I’m not sure yet how I feel about it as the conclusion to the trilogy. I’ll have to read all three books again at some point.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Children of Anguish and Anarchy”.

Book Details

A young black woman is on the cover looking backwards over her shoulder. She is wearing a silver and gold head covering that covers part of her face. The title is shown at the bottom of the cover and the author's name at the top.

Author’s Website
Tomi Adeyemi
Publisher / Date
Henry Holt Books for Young Readers, June 2024
Genre
Fantasy, Young Adult
Page Count
368
Completion Date
June 29, 2024